It was about nine o'clock at night, and the three occupants of the cave were sitting with awed faces before the fire, when, to their inexpressible surprise, Ulna, the young Ute, stood dripping before them.
"How did you reach here?" asked Sam, springing to his feet and grasping Ulna's hand.
"I rode till I killed my horse, then I ran for hours. The flood was up, and it is rising, but I managed to swim across——"
"But my father!" interrupted Sam, pleadingly laying his arm on the young Indian's shoulders.
"He and Hank Tims are prisoners at Hurley's Gulch," said Ulna.
"Prisoners."
"Yes, and in the hands of the lynchers who charge them with the murder of Tom Edwards. Here is a letter from your father that will explain all," said Ulna, pulling a damp paper from his pocket and adding, "your testimony is wanted at once to clear the accused; but no man can cross the cañon for a week, and then it will be too late!"
[CHAPTER IV.—A PERILOUS SITUATION.]
Sam Willett had courage and fortitude in no common degree, but the words of Ulna, who stood dripping and panting before him, froze him with a speechless terror.
He took the wet paper from the Indian boy's hand, but for some seconds he had neither the courage nor the strength to open it.